Collection of Nebraska Pioneer Reminiscences Part 28

In the future when the cobwebs have all been swept from the mind of the world and everyone is enjoying the new atmosphere of equal rights only a very few will realize the struggle these brave women endured in order to bring about better conditions for the world.

_Statement by Lucy L. Correll_

Hebron, Thayer county, Nebraska, was the cradle of the Nebraska woman suffrage movement, as this was the first community in the state to organize a permanent woman's suffrage a.s.sociation.

Previous to this organization the subject had been agitated through editorials in the Hebron _Journal_, and by a band of progressive, thinking women. Upon their request the editor of the _Journal_, E. M.

Correll, prepared an address upon "Woman and Citizenship." Enthusiasm was aroused, and a column of the _Journal_ was devoted to the interests of women, and was ably edited by the coterie of ladies having the advancement of the legal status of women at heart.

Through the efforts of Mr. Correll, Susan B. Anthony was induced to come to Hebron and give her lecture on "Bread versus the Ballot," on October 30, 1877. Previous to this time many self-satisfied women believed they had all the "rights" they wanted, but they were soon awakened to a new consciousness of their true status wherein they discovered their "rights" were only "privileges."

On April 15, 1879, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, upon invitation, lectured in Hebron and organized the Thayer County Woman's Suffrage a.s.sociation. This society grew from fifteen, the number at organization, to about seventy-five, many leading business men becoming members.

Other organizations in the state followed, and at the convening of the Nebraska legislature of 1881, a joint resolution providing for the submission to the electors of this state an amendment to section 1, article VII, of the const.i.tution, was presented by Representative E. M.

Correll, and mainly through his efforts pa.s.sed the house by the necessary three-fifths majority, and the senate by twenty-two to eight, but was defeated at the polls.

During that memorable campaign of 1881-82, Lucy Stone Blackwell, and many other talented women of note, from the eastern states, lectured in Nebraska for the advancement of women, leaving the impress of the n.o.bility of their characters upon the women of the middle West.

The Thayer County Woman's Suffrage a.s.sociation was highly honored, as several of its members held positions of trust in the state a.s.sociation, and one of its members, Hon. E. M. Correll, who was publishing the _Woman's Journal_, at Lincoln, at the time of the annual conference of the American Woman's Suffrage a.s.sociation, at Louisville, Kentucky, in October, 1881, was elected to the important position of president of that national organization, in recognition of the work he had performed for the advancement of the cause of "Equality before the Law."

This a.s.sociation served its time and purpose and after many years was instrumental in organizing the Hebron Library a.s.sociation.

The const.i.tution and by-laws of this first woman's suffrage a.s.sociation of the state are still well preserved. The first officers were: Susan E.

Ferguson, president; Harriet G. Huse, vice president; Barbara J.

Thompson, secretary; Lucy L. Correll, treasurer; A. Martha Vermillion, corresponding secretary. Of these first officers only one is now living.

AN INDIAN RAID

BY ERNEST E. CORRELL

In 1869, Fayette Kingsley and family resided on the Haney homestead at the southeast corner of Hebron, where Mr. Haney had been brutally murdered in the presence of his three daughters in 1867, the daughters escaping and eventually reaching their home, "back east."

On May 26, 1869, "Old Daddy" Marks, accompanied by a young man for protection, drove over from Rose creek to warn Kingsley's that the Indians were on a raid. While they were talking, Mr. Kingsley heard the pit-pat of the Indian horses on the wet prairie. From the west were riding thirty-six Indians, led by a white man, whose hat and fine boots attracted attention in contrast to the bare-headed Indians wearing moccasins.

In the house were enough guns and revolvers to shoot sixty rounds without loading. When Mrs. Kingsley saw the Indians approaching she scattered the arms and ammunition on the table where the men could get them. There were two Spencer carbines, a double-barreled shotgun, and two navy revolvers, besides other firearms.

Mr. Kingsley and Charlie Miller (a young man from the East who was boarding with them) went into the house, got the guns, and leveled them on the Indians, who had come within 250 yards of the log-house, but who veered off on seeing the guns. One of the party at the house exclaimed, "The Indians are going past and turning off!" Mr. Marks then said, "Then for G.o.d's sake, don't shoot!"

The Indians went on down the river and drove away eleven of King Fisher's horses. Two of Fisher's boys lay concealed in the gra.s.s and saw the white leader of the Indians remove his hat, showing his close-cut hair. He talked the Indian language and ordered the redskins to drive up a pony, which proved to be lame and was not taken. The Indians continued their raid nearly to Meridian.

Meanwhile at Kingsley's preparations were made for a hurried flight. Mr.

Marks said he must go home to protect his own family on Rose creek, but the young man accompanying him insisted that he cross the river and return by way of Alexander's ranch on the Big Sandy, as otherwise they would be following the Indians. Mr. Kingsley, with his wife and three children, went with them to Alexander's ranch, staying there two weeks until Governor Butler formed a company of militia composed of the settlers, to protect the frontier. A company of the Second U. S. Cavalry was sent here and stationed west of Hackney, later that summer. The Indians killed a man and his son, and took their horses, less than two miles from the soldiers' camp.

On returning to the homestead, two cows and two yoke of oxen were found all right. Before the flight, Mr. Kingsley had torn down the pen, letting out a calf and a pig. Sixty days later, on recovering the pig, Mr. Kingsley noticed a sore spot on its back, and he pulled out an arrow point about three inches long.

The Indians had taken all the bedding and eatables, even taking fresh baked bread out of the oven. They tore open the feather-bed and scattered the contents about--whether for amus.e.m.e.nt or in search of hidden treasures is not known. They found a good pair of boots, and cut out the fine leather tops (perhaps for moccasins) but left the heavy soles. From a new harness they also took all the fine straps and left the tugs and heavy leather. They had such a load that at the woodpile they discarded Mr. Kingsley's double-barreled shotgun, which had been loaded with buckshot for them.

Captain Wilson, a lawyer who boarded with Mr. Kingsley, had gone to warn King Fisher, leaving several greenbacks inside a copy of the Nebraska statutes. These the Indians found and appropriated--perhaps their white leader was a renegade lawyer accustomed to getting money out of the statutes.

In 1877 Mr. Kingsley's family had a narrow escape from death in a peculiar manner. After a heavy rain the walls of his bas.e.m.e.nt caved in.

His children occupied two beds standing end to end and filling the end of the bas.e.m.e.nt. When the rocks from the wall caved in, both beds were crushed to the floor and a little pet dog on one of the beds was killed, but the children had no bones broken. Presumably the bedding protected them and the breaking of the bedsteads broke the jar of the rocks on their bodies.

Mr. Kingsley has a deeply religious nature, and believes that Divine protection has been with him through life.

REMINISCENCES

BY MRS. E. A. RUSSELL

In September, 1884, Rev. E. A. Russell was transferred by the American Baptist Publication Society from his work in the East to Nebraska, and settled on an eighty-acre ranch near Ord. Mr. Russell had held pastorates for twenty-six years in New Hampshire, New York, and Indiana, but desired to come west for improvement in health. He was accompanied by his family of seven. Western life was strange and exciting with always the possibility of an Indian raid, and dangerous prairie fires.

It was the custom to plow a wide furrow around the home buildings as a precaution against the latter.

The first year in Nebraska, our oldest daughter, Alice M. Russell, was princ.i.p.al of the Ord school, and Edith taught in the primary grade.

On the fifth of August, 1885, late in the afternoon, a terrific hail-storm swept over the country. All crops were destroyed; even the gra.s.s was beaten into the earth, so there was little left as pasture for cattle. Pigs and poultry were killed by dozens and the plea of a tender-hearted girl, that a poor calf, beaten down by hailstones, might be brought "right into the kitchen," was long remembered. Not a window in our house remained unbroken. The floor was covered with rain and broken gla.s.s and ice; and our new, white, hard-finished walls and ceilings were bespattered and disfigured.

This hail-storm was a general calamity. The whole country suffered and many families returned, disheartened, to friends in the East.

The Baptist church was so shattered that, for its few members, it was no easy task to repair it. But they soon put it in good condition, only to see it utterly wrecked by a small cyclone the following October.

The income that year from a forty-acre cornfield was one small "nubbin"

less than three inches in length.

All these things served to emphasize the heart-rending stories we had heard of sufferings of early pioneers. The nervous shock sustained by the writer was so great that a year elapsed before she was able to see clearly, or to read. As she was engaged on the four years' post-graduate course of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, her eldest son read aloud to her during that year and her work was completed at the same time as he and his younger sister graduated with the cla.s.s of 1887.

Some time later the writer organized a Chautauqua Circle, Ord's first literary society. Its president was a Mr. King and its secretary E. J.

Clements, now of Lincoln, Nebraska.

During our second winter in Nebraska the writer did not see a woman to speak to after her daughters went to their schools in Lincoln, where one was teaching and the other a University pupil.

Of the "Minnie Freeman Storm" in January, 1888, all our readers have doubtless heard. Our two youngest boys were at school a mile away; but fortunately we lived south of town and they reached home in safety.

In 1881 Fort Hartsuff, twelve miles away, had been abandoned. The building of this fort had been the salvation of pioneers, giving them work and wages after the terrible scourge of locusts in 1874. It was still the pride of those who had been enabled to remain in the desolated country and we heard much about it. So, when a brother came from New England to visit an only sister on the "Great American Desert," we took an early start one morning and visited "The Fort." The buildings, at that time, were in fairly good condition. Officers' quarters, barracks, commissary buildings, stables, and other structures were of concrete, so arranged as to form a hollow square; and, near by on a hill, was a circular stockade, which was said to be connected with the fort by an underground pa.s.sage.

A prominent figure in Ord in 1884 was an attractive young lady who later married Dr. F. D. Haldeman. In 1904 Mrs. Haldeman organized _Coronado_ chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. Her sister, Dr. Minerva Newbecker, has practiced medicine in Ord for many years. Another sister, Clara Newbecker, has long been a teacher in the public schools of Chicago. These three sisters, who descended from Lieutenant Philip Newbecker, of Revolutionary fame, and Mrs. Nellie Coombs, are the only living charter members of _Coronado_ chapter. The chapter was named in honor of that governor of New Galicia in Mexico who is supposed to have pa.s.sed through some portion of our territory in 1540 when he fitted out an expedition to seek and christianize the people of that wonderful region where "golden bells and dishes of solid gold" hung thick upon the trees.

About all that is definitely known is that he set up a cross at the big river, with the inscription: "Thus far came Francisco de Coronado, General of an expedition."

And now, in 1915, the family of seven, by one marriage after another, has dwindled to a lonely--two.

The head of our household, with recovered health, served his denomination twenty years in this great field, comprising Nebraska, Upper Colorado, and Wyoming. He retired in 1904 to the sanctuary of a quiet home.